Mexicana Airlines

Mexicana Airlines, Spanish in full Compañía Mexicana de Aviación (CMA), oldest airline in North America, founded in 1924 in Tampico, Mex., and now headquartered in Mexico City.

The company began as a cargo carrier, carrying payrolls to the oil fields out of Tampico. The first scheduled service began in 1928, linking Mexico City, Tuxpan, and Tampico, followed in the same year by service between Mexico City, Veracruz, and Mérida. The Mexico City–Tampico–Brownsville route opened in 1929, piloted by Charles A. Lindbergh.

In the course of succeeding decades, the routes and services expanded, and the ownership of the airline by Pan American Airways rose and then fell (to accord with new Mexican laws limiting foreign ownership). In 1967 Pan American yielded its remaining stock in the airline. The Mexican government was the majority shareholder in the company from 1982 to 1990, when it sold the airline to private investors. However, Mexicana struggled during the country’s economic crisis of the mid-1990s, and it returned to government ownership. The airline subsequently underwent numerous changes, including expansion of service. By the late 20th century it was flying to more than 30 cities in Mexico and to various cities in the United States, the Caribbean, Central America, and Europe. In 2005 the airline was sold to the travel company Grupo Posadas. Mexicana later experienced financial difficulties, especially after the 2009 outbreak of swine flu in Mexico limited travel. In August 2010 the airline filed for bankruptcy protection, and several weeks later it suspended operations.